It appears like, generally speaking, achievements in adventure games work best when rewarding additional exploration or trying alternate routes through the game. I mean, on average, there isn't a lot of actually difficult eye-hand coordination type challenges, with some exceptions. This seems like a good way to up the replay value and get the most mileage out of a non-linear storyline (where the single-playthrough length is sacrificed -- less trunk and more 'branches).

I just got my first 'test' achievement in a prototype Steam build of Neofeud and I'm already addicted! (makes heroin addict sounds and mindlessly throws money at Steam)

m0ds

Some people will work through your achievements, no matter how many you have, 10 or 100. And some people won't work through your achievements, also no matter how many you have. Therefore it isn't exactly measurable and so "right or wrongs" on achievements can surely only ever be personal conjecture, based on individual experiences. And even collating these still won't necessarily give you an accurate idea of what will happen when your experience is live. Do we not generally expect each new experience to be fresh, a little different and exciting from the last? So don't be afraid to do that!

It's your game, do what you want with it! Surrendering to popular opinion will only keep it firmly in the realm of standardized mediocrity. If you feel you've made a piece of expressive art then treat it as such and give it what you think feels right to promote that fact. If you're just a marketing department with a game dev studio on the other end of it, definitely pander to people's opinions and standard formats. There is no right or wrong way to go about achievements, so long as they work, everything else is just opinion and won't necessarily reflect those that are simply there to enjoy consuming your expression, your experience, whatever you make it.

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I really dislike getting achievements for simply reaching a certain distance in the game.

An interesting statement, considering this is exactly what you're doing for the entirety of a point n click - reaching certain distances, in the story etc - being rewarded with cutscenes etc at each milestone. You're rewarded in the game, and with Steam, you're simply rewarded outside of the game for, in some cases, sitting through godawful stories and reaching said points Of course, if you're enjoying the story, and enjoying reaching the milestones, a little extra pat on the back for it from the Steam client isn't exactly a burden. "Reaching milestone" achievements are the base achievement type. My own personal opinion is that those are the very least a game should have in terms of achievements.

Even though they and other types of achievement may not be to everyone's taste, as a developer, it's also quite entertaining to see people find and unlock your achievements in Let's Plays etc. You don't have to like achievements yourself to appreciate they still bring other people some kind of additional joy here and there!

Still, for the record: I generally find myself playing a game once, and just get what achievements I get alongside enjoying a game for the first time, and if the game is good enough to be replayed, will work through the achievements I missed previously, because when you come to know the story and the outcome etc, there's still incentive (for me) to go back and complete/find things I missed. You find new bits of game, maybe additional mechanics you missed out on first time round. As a consumer I don't find this an issue myself...more bang for your buck! Arguably, with the linearity of some point n click games, this won't always be the case. Play it once and you've seen and done everything there is to do. But more and more even point n clicks are becoming less linear these days, and in some ways, that is down to rewarding different actions through the experience, whether that's in game or outside of game. And tackling linearity in any form is generally a plus. You probably don't need an achievement for every "Look at", but that doesn't mean a player using every "look at" can't be rewarded in some way.

This. And yet, 6.8% of all players of the game Paradigm on Steam have the achievement for clicking TEN THOUSAND TIMES. Though I suppose a lot of them used an autoclicker. Which tells us, it's more a feat of trickery than stamina.

Mainly the goal with this idea of, "Do x amount of look/talk/use," is a way to incentivize potential re-players to read a lot of the descriptions and hear dialogs I spent a bunch of time on, but that you could gloss over in the first playthrough, especially if you get engrossed in the primary story. Then for folks who were on the fence about a second playthrough, this time the guiding principle isn't, "Get through the game" but rather, "Experience everything", which could give more bang for the buck. On the other hand, it may be unnecessary, if most point-n-click players are pretty completist normally, and click on everything the first time around.

I take Mark's point on marketing that we probably have enough design-by-focus-group-and-Big-Data games in the world at this point, though.

I do want to have at least a few, 'pretty challenging' achievements, for the hardcore achievement hunters.

As a person who almost never replays a game, especially not just after finishing it (literally the only example where I ever did that was Bastion to see if the stuff hinted at in the end would change a new ending, but I got bored and stopped somewhere in the first level), I'm not sure there's any point to incentivising a replay of what would be almost the same experience (even with a couple minor branches here and there). If the writing is cool or the world is interesting, I'd have been going the "Look at everything" route anyhow, and if not, reading 10 variations of "this is a door" wouldn't motivate me.

Personally, for a traditional adventure game, I can't think of any meaningful achievements EXCEPT linear progress achievements, coupled with achievements for which branch of a story you took. Achievements for "You clicked the PICK UP TREE 300 times, lol!" or "You clicked TALK on every interactable in the game, congrats!" seem incredibly pointless and stupid to me, and "You solved the puzzle in 1 go/You got what you wanted in the conversation tree in 1 go/You got through the maze without dying in 1 go" achievements don't really motivate me to replay a game if I didn't get it in 1 go (they'd probably motivate achievement hunters, but those players will be doing everything to get the achievements regardless- they'd probably even click the tree 300 times).

I loooove achievements and trading cards, also the badges (they come along with wallpapers aaaand … emoticons on Steam - YAY! ) Badges, llamas, medals, trophies … depends on what site you are on … are nice to decorate the profile page or signature, to show that you are part of the community, earned them or got them as a present, participated on an activity - or to just brag with them …

That aside about linear achivements - for example after completing a part, task, day and such - they give me a hint about how long the game will go on and (on Steam) I can see how far my friends got in the game.

As for special achivements - I do like to be rewarded for discovering something 'hidden' that wasn't needed to follow the story or to 'win' the game but that was inplemented for extra detail like easter eggs or jokes or to have found/read every piece of written notes, saw a hidden pic or to have done a useless but funny action - even more if that action takes really place (like to put the cat on the record player - and it really will be placed on the turntable spinning around)

I simply love that and I confess to have replayed games to search for missed parts or different outcomings.

I really dislike getting achievements for simply reaching a certain distance in the game. I feel as though they're a little patronising, and are a very lazy attempt at making achievements.

Well, it depends on the game. Reaching a higher level in a tricky rogue-like, for instance, may prove to be as difficult to achieve as some of the more obscure tasks in otherwise linear games.

That is definitely true, but in that case it's more like getting a highscore, and the achievement is merely showing that.And honestly, despite my previous statement, I do like it when I get an achievement for completing a game. So maybe I should have included a little asterisk when I wrote that.

But at the same time, I feel the need to express my opinion that achievements shouldn't be in EVERY SINGLE GAME.Something I've noticed no one talking about on this thread, is how achievements can break immersion in some games. For example, let's imagine for a second if achievements were around when Silent Hill 2 was released. Could you imagine wandering around that game, the siren going off, the background changing, and monsters shambling into view, and then suddenly... DING! Achievement unlocked!

I don't know if you can turn achievements off on Steam, but I know you can't do it on a PlayStation (or at least it's not obvious as to how). And something like that can really ruin immersion. I don't think Silent Hill 2 would have been as good of a game as it is, had it had achievements. As a matter of fact, there's probably quite a few old games which I think are better simply because they don't have achievements.

Obviously I can think of a few old games which would have been improved with achievements, Tomb Raider for example. But most of the games that I look back at with fond memories, I'm glad were made before achievements were a thing.

But at the same time, I feel the need to express my opinion that achievements shouldn't be in EVERY SINGLE GAME.Something I've noticed no one talking about on this thread, is how achievements can break immersion in some games. For example, let's imagine for a second if achievements were around when Silent Hill 2 was released. Could you imagine wandering around that game, the siren going off, the background changing, and monsters shambling into view, and then suddenly... DING! Achievement unlocked!

*Ahem*

Did you see my post? I said then, that achievements break the immersion of a game.

So generally speaking, would it be best to hide all Steam achievements due to spoilers?

generally I vote: No!

But to be sure - What do you mean by hiding? - The usual hidden ones on Steam (looking at all the possible achievements will only show you the possibility of x secret achivements)?In case those are not too stupid ones (like 100.000 clicks on a special point in game) and if not all of the possible achievements are secret/hidden - I like it. It will make an extra challenge to find them and I often read about gamers that are real achievement hunters who are going through a game for several times to get those, too.

Also about those who don't want to get spoiled by possible achievements: The first achievements (those you can see on the description site of the game) usually are not the hardest to get like 'did the tutorial', 'entered first time somewhere' and such) so not very spoilerish in my eyes (also you need to hoover the cursor on them to read about what they are given for). To see nearly all of the achivements (not all of them - see above) before getting them you have to click on extra links. - So just don't do it.

Is it possible for the dev to turn the achievement popup on/off?If so, I would suggest you add a box on your game settings or achievements page, to let the player turn on or off the popup as they prefer. I'm pro-choice, as let the player decide.